


further on up the road

by republica



Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Huddling For Warmth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:40:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/republica/pseuds/republica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Wynonna, darling, you gotta stay awake now. Let's warm you up.” </p><p>She blinks at him, and smirks. “And just how do you suggest we get warm?” </p><p>typical trope-y stuff<br/>UPDATED chapter 1 (slight changes etc)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> sooo i'm just dropping by to add my interest in this ship to the mix. hope you enjoy, the rest should be up by the end of the week

 

If Wynonna were a normal person, she might wonder why she was wandering through the forest in minus temperatures in December when she could be eating lo mein or making friends with a bottle of something. But Wynonna has accepted that she is not normal, and the answer to the question is because Waverly had told her about 'unusual' phenomenon that had been detected in this area, and that of course leads to Wynonna, the forest, and the cold. She glances behind her at Doc, who'd insisted on accompanying her (chivalry? Pig-headedness? You never could be sure), and she figured if she had to wander around some shitty frozen landscape, it would at least be better if he had to do it too.

Following along about ten paces behind her, Doc is eying the sky, which is getting slightly darker, and he reaches into his pocket to light up a cigarillo. Wynonna gestures for it and takes a drag as they both stop to survey their surroundings. Whatever phenomena Waverly had found, all they're seeing is snow, trees, and a small frozen lake.

She pulls out her cellphone, which magically has some reception out in this nowhere-ville, and dials Waverly's number, prepared to smugly inform her that she was wrong! Completely and utterly wrong, and Wynonna was right, and smarter, and everyone should always listen to her.

"Hello? So, what's going on?" Waverly asks, chipper in the way that someone who didn't walk 4 miles in the snow can be.

"What's that? I can't hear you over the sound of all the nothing we found here."

"Nothing? Are you sure, Wynonna, because all the signs match a specific ritual I read about – and Dolls agreed, those lights in the sky...”

"Listen Waves, I'm looking directly at a this disappointingly empty landscape and seeing maybe one tree with a hint of a green leaf on it."

"Well, have another look - there might be something you missed."

Grumbling about sisters who should listen to their elders, Wynonna turns to Doc, who'd been examining the tree with mild interest.

"I can't say that we've found anything worthy of much remark out here," he comments as she draws closer.

"AKA, this was a waste of time. I agree. Waverly wants us to 'have another look' - has she never seen a snow-covered field before? Not much to see."

The two of them walk a few minutes in silence. It's one thing Wynonna appreciates about Doc - if he has something to say, he'll say it, but he isn't a chatterer. She doesn't have to say anything if she doesn't want to.

They're standing on the crest of a rolling swell of land when something weird happens. It feels kind of like an earthquake, except there shouldn't be any earthquakes in this area. It's like the earth just sort of - jerks - quickly, and it sends Wynonna and Doc to their knees.

"What the fuck?" She says, her jeans already soaking through.

"My thoughts exactly," Doc says, and his hand drifts to his holster. There's a movement in the corner of his eye, and he turns towards the shadow. It sets off through the trees, and he tosses down the bag he'd been holding to pursue, calling out to Wynonna as he goes.

Wynonna's seen something – or someone – too, over the bluff and by the river, and she has Peacemaker out and cocked when the ground shifts again, harder. Wynonna is thrown from her feet completely, and she half flies, half falls down the side of the bluff.

It's just her luck that she lands on the ice covering the small river - really, its more of a stream -she has time to think - which cracks and she shouts at the pure coldness of it before she's plunged underwater.

Whatever he's chasing melts into the shadows of the trees, and Doc curses, slowing down and stopping to look around. There's no sign of anyone, so he turns back. He's equally caught off guard by the second tremor, which sends him falling back into a tree. His breath flies out with an oof – and he rolls over in the snow, in a very undignified manner indeed, before he manages to pull himself together and stand up. His hat is filled with snow, but his clothes have kept him fairly well insulated so he supposes he'll have to live with cold ears. He's had much worse.

"Wynonna!" He shouts as he brushes the snow out of his mustache. Not very dignified for the lady to see him like that now is it? He half walks, half jogs back towards the bluff, snagging the bag from the ground as he goes.

There's no reply from the other side of the bluff. "Wynonna Earp!" He calls again, and trots quickly up the land.

She's not there.

He feels his chest constrict a little bit as he surveils the empty landscape.

Then he sees it - a motion coming from the water, and he realizes what happens and feels as though he might freeze too. She's in the water - wearing her boots and her coat and, oh, shit, he has to do something fast.

He throws everything down as he's running down the side, and he can see her now; the water isn't deep but she's under it, bobbing slightly and clearly struggling to get to the surface. He stops at the bank and waits a second before he sees what to do - a branch from the biggest tree next to the water, thrown into the water and she grabs it right away - she's a smart girl - and he pulls until she's at the edge and he throws down the branch and takes her arm instead as she's grasping at the cold frozen ground. With one more pull she's half on land, her sodden boots still in the water and she's coughing and spitting and Doc can feel his heart beating way too fast.

"Did you just save my life?" Wynonna asks after a minute, and her voice is hoarse but he can't help but smile anyway just to hear it.

  
  


"Why hasn't she called back yet?" Waverly asks, and she's definitely not worried, you know, just casually wondering since it has been an hour and really if there's nothing there then it should be pretty fast to call back and  _say_ that there's nothing. But Wynonna hasn't called. Ok, so maybe she is a little worried.

"Maybe she and Doc got bored and you know..." Nicole suggests, winking at Waverly.

"Ew! Gross! The less I have to think about them... doing anything, the better." Waverly pretends to scowl. "Also, it is 25 degrees out, not very sexy."

"Fair enough," Nicole agrees. "Why don't you call?"

Waverly snatches up the phone and hits redial.

"No answer," she says after a minute. "Why is there no answer?"

Nicole's face gets more serious at her computer desk - "Waverly, come look at this."

**Unusual seismic activity recorded 20 miles from Purgatory** reads an urgent update from the local weather station. 

"Seismic? We've never..." Waverly pauses. "You don't think..."

Her mind is already whirling; she leaps up to grab a giant book from a pile of tomes on a side table. Tremors... tremors... she finds the page and sinks back down into her seat. “Oh, crap.”

  
  


Wynonna is shivering uncontrollably, her breathing ragged and her the skin around her lips is beginning to turn blue. Doc hurriedly drags her farther away from the water, towards a tree that might offer them a little protection. Luckily there's a log nearby and he hauls it over towards them from the edge of the water, propping the waterlogged woman up against it and beginning to heave off her jacket. Wynonna whimpers slightly when his skin touched hers; it isn't a sound he's ever heard her make before. His hands fumble against the sodden fabric of her sweater and her shirt. As he tries to pull it over her head she starts to struggle, her arms coming up flailing and almost whacking him in the face.

"Now Wynonna love, you be a good girl and stay still for once," he admonishes her as he manouvres an arm through a hole.

"Doc?" Wynonna's voice sounds muffled through the sweater. "I'm cold."

"Out of these clothes and you'll warm up in a jiffy," he tells her. His mind is already thinking ahead, about how she'd been under the water for at least five minutes before he'd made it back up the bluff; how they needed to make a fire, and quick; about the thing he'd chased – almost definitely a revenant, and clearly in this area for a reason. Waverly had been correct that something was afoot here. He just hopes it will leave them be until he's gotten Wynonna safe.

His hands only falter for a moment before they start on the buttons of her flannel shirt. Her eyes are open now, but she's still shivering madly. She is aware enough to help him shrug the shirt off and her pale, icy skin is bared to the frosty air. Doc politely averts his eyes from the lacy black brassiere that she's wearing and starts on her boots.

"You know Doc," Wynonna whispers as he finally wrangles off the left boot, "this isn't usually what happens when guys try to get in my pants."

She feebly reacheds down to undo the button on her jeans. The material is difficult to deal with, thick and heavy with water, and underneath she has on black leggings.

"You are wrapped up tighter than a newborn my dear," Doc comments as she kicks off the jeans.

"You get to unwrap me... happy birthday?" she said, and coughs violently. "Motherfucker, it's cold out here.”

Doc shrugs off his own coat and drapes it over her shoulders, knowing that it won't help as much as is needed.

Once they've peeled off her leggings, Doc sits back on his heels.

"I'd best get to figuring out how to make a fire," he told her, "you sit tight my dear and try to rub some feeling back into your extremities."

He says a silent thank you to whoever had packed the knapsack he'd been carrying – inside he finds a blanket, a flashlight and – a flask. He has an idea who packed this bag after all.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Wynonna can feel her teeth chattering, in a way she really never thought actually happened in real life. She's like a cartoon character except she's pretty much naked, wearing her underwear and Doc's coat, sitting against a tree and she's pretty sure her hair is starting to freeze. There's definitely a bit of a crunch when she moves her head.

The really worrying part is that her feet have disappeared. She can see them, but they don't really want to _move;_ she'd tried to stand up and look around, see if Doc was coming back, but her legs had pretty strongly refused to cooperate. Where did Doc go, anyway? She couldn't remember. And where was Waverly? She'd been talking to Waverly...

Shit. Her hand automatically goes to her hip, but of course she's not wearing her jeans. They're a few feet away in a heap on the ground, and she leans over to try and grab them. Unfortunately, her traitor legs are still rebelling and she lands in an undignified heap. At least she's close enough to fish in her sodden jeans pocket – to retrieve her cellphone, equally soaked and useless. What had she expected?

“Now, how did you get down there?” Doc's voice sounds amused but also strained, and Wynonna turns to see him carrying a large pile of firewood. She's never been happier to see a pile of logs in her life.

“So, are we making this fire Wild West style? You have a match?” She asks as he sets about piling the wood in the best pattern.

“My dear, I'm a 21st century man now,” he says, and pulls a yellow Bic lighter out of his back pocket. “Possibly the greatest invention they dreamed up while I was mmm... incapacitated. One gets a mighty craving for tobacco after a hundred years.”

Wynonna has to laugh, and then she has to cough again, a spasmic motion that she can see Doc watching from the corner of her eye. He doesn't say anything though, just continues fiddling with the fire. Wynonna's feeling tired, and her toes are still numb, and she is so goddamn motherfucking cold that she decides to close her eyes for a minute...

Doc gets the fire going with minimal effort, and that calms a little bit of the panic that's been fluttering around his mind. They'll be fine, he tells himself. The younger Earp and the constable are sure to realize something is amiss. As long as he can keep Wynonna safe for this night, they'll get things worked out tomorrow.

He looks up and sees that she's started to drowse – her eyes are closed and she's leaning back. He goes over and sits down next to her, takes her hand – the skin is still much cooler than he'd like, and starts to gently rub her hand between his. “Wynonna, darling, you gotta stay awake now. Get closer to the fire where it's warm."

She blinks at him, and smirks. “Smart guy like you, can't think of a better way to get warm?”

A straightforward lady she is.

“Well, we have two bodies here, and in my professional medical opinion body heat is by far the quickest way to achieve our goal,” he tells her, and she quirks an eyebrow.

“You were a dentist, Doc. But if you really want to cuddle...”

 

Wynonna had kinda been joking; she's always trying to find new ways to throw Doc off his guard - he has a certain unflappability about him that she takes as a challenge. So she scoots her way over towards him on their makeshift log bench, and unceremoniously sits herself down right on his lap. She is rewarded with a slight huff of surprise, and then Doc's arms snake around her and he draws her back against him. He wraps the coat around her legs and shifts them closer to the fire.

The thing is that Doc is really warm. He's right, damn him – she feels less shaky already, but tiny tremors continue to hit her. The fire starts to actually blaze and she can feel its warmth on her legs and she sighs a bit.

“I hate it when you're right,” she whispers up into his ear and she can feel the rumble of laughter in his chest. “'M gonna sleep now, okay?”

Wynonna sleeps like a sack of flour, falling unconscious almost immediately, her weight heavy against his chest. Her face is pressed up against his collar, flyaway hairs tickle his nose and she's finally stopped shivering. He readjusts the jacket so it more fully covers her feet, grabs a stick from the pile of branches he'd collected and stokes the fire a bit. Soon enough it'll be morning, he thinks, and he'll have to let her go. But for now, she'll sleep.

He can't help but think of the last time the two of them were alone in a forest, after the unfortunate events with Fish and Levi. He'd been cruel, and she'd been hurt and they'd come together. He'd found her to be just as mouthy in their personal encounters as she is with everyone. But somehow he'd known it wasn't serious, it was some way for her to deal with everything that's happened. When she'd come and confessed that people knew, that only confirmed it – she'd been ashamed, she'd wanted it to be a secret.

Sure, maybe he gets that. He isn't a big man for spouting off about feelings, and he'd gotten what he'd expected from their arrangement. But he can't help but think that he feels a stronger connection now with this version of Wynonna, the one snoring a little bit against his collarbone, than he'd felt seeing her naked and stretched out under him. That was a challenge, one he'd gladly accepted, and this – this was trust. Was it something he deserved, after everything he'd done?

“Doc, you're a sentimental old fool,” he whispers out loud, and settles his hat down over his eyes a bit lower, his eyes alert in the darkness that the light of their fire only does so much to break.

 


End file.
